Thursday, March 24, 2011

Welcome!

Welcome to the new COARE blog!

I’m assuming that most of you reading this are already at least somewhat familiar with the work COARE does, but for those of you who aren’t, I’ll give you the cliff-notes version! We’re a nonprofit that’s located in the San Francisco bay area, and we are actively involved in educational outreach to the public to try to create positive and lasting change in the way people view the oceans. A few of our main projects currently include working to put an end the horribly wasteful and inhumane shark-fin industry internationally, supporting the ban of single-use plastic bags in California and elsewhere, and the international Shark Safe certification program (which endorses restaurants and select businesses that distinguish themselves through their manifest dedication to shark conservation). You can read more about the work COARE does and find out how you can get more involved by going to our website here.

Recently, shark finning has become a very hot-button issue, with many countries around the world pushing to end the barbaric practice (the U.S. even passed a bill recently that drastically restricts finning in U.S. waters, albeit with some ridiculous loopholes). Currently, California, Washington and Oregon are all considering legislation to ban the sale of shark fins (it’s already banned in Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam). With many shark species perilously close to becoming extinct (some populations are estimated to have declined by 99%!), it’s clear that ending the finning of sharks is one of the most pressing ocean conservation issues we’re facing today. COARE has been actively supporting the shark-finning bills in California and Washington, with our Executive Director, Chistopher Chin, testifying in front of the state legislature in Sacramento recently on behalf of the California bill. Our support for this issue, as well as many other crucial conservation topics, is something we plan to discuss regularly here, in order to inspire people to action through increasing awareness. We hope that through this blog, we will be able to reach a wider audience than we do currently, as well as foster discussion with our supporters about how we can more effectively create change across the U.S. and across the world.

We’re new to this whole blogging thing, and we’d welcome your involvement! Please let us know by leaving a comment if you have any thoughts or suggestions for us. We’re very excited to get the blog rolling!

P.S. If you’re interested, you can sign up to receive with our posts via e-mail by entering your address into the box at the top right of this page. You can also share the site with your friends on facebook and twitter by clicking the link in the right-hand sidebar! We greatly appreciate all of your support and enthusiasm.